


What Makes a Soldier

by TheMadDesperado



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Akuze, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Disasters, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mindoir, Novelization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-23 16:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16622114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMadDesperado/pseuds/TheMadDesperado
Summary: She became a legend, but she had humble starts, an episodic telling of Shepards life. Colonist, sole survivor, paragon.





	1. Chapter 1

N7 Mindoir

She didn't know if she should enlist or not and it weighed on her mind a lot. Her mother had just gotten relieved of duty to stay on Mindoir with her and her father again.

The Shepard family wasn't really full of soldiers like most of the other colony family's, her mother was the only one on her side to enlist, but she was an engineer, not a front lines soldier. Her father came from a long line of farmers and continued it on the new planet.

Reyah had never seen earth; she was born on Mindoir and never took a shuttle off. She loved the yellow skies and tan grasses, like fields of gold that rose into the sky; she would pretend she was a princess in a palace of gold.

She wasn't interested in most of the things kids her age were. She still wanted to climb trees and jump canyons, her nerves made of stuff stronger than steel. She wanted to tinker with the mako's parked in the hanger out back and take apart the oven to see how it worked.

By the time she was thirteen she had figured out how to hack all the locks in their settlement, though she never told anyone she did, after all she would have to explain why she did it, and the only reason she had was curiosity.

When she was fourteen, she had started to study outside of her scheduled courses at the academy. Her mother encouraged the technical skills, after all she was taking after her mother, how could she not be proud. 

She loved studying aliens, Turians were the ones she had the most info on, after Shanxi the schools were filled with studies and diagrams, but none on culture.

Her father helped her too. He was a kind man, who taught Reyah right from wrong and instilled in her the love of helping others. She helped her father on his farms, building the muscles she started with the trees. She helped the storeowners carry heavy boxes and awkward parcels.

She gained a reputation for being the one to go to if you needed anything on Mindoir. She knew where everything was from her private prying and she knew everyone from her day-to-day activities. 

At the academy, they started asking what the students wanted to do with their lives. Reyah had no idea; did she want to follow her father's footsteps, her mother's or to blaze her own unique trail?

She had decided on ambassador a while later, she could meet all the fascinating aliens she had heard about and be a peacekeeper of the human race. She thought she would do well there.

Reyah woke up in the darkest time of night, her heart beating like a jackhammer. It was silent, as usual. There was nothing amiss that would have woken the young girl, but something in her screamed danger.

Her footsteps almost echoed in her silent house, the feeling of doom only grew stronger in her chest, something was very very wrong.

She grabbed the gun that sat in a drawer her parents thought she didn't know about and opened the door achingly slowly. Again nothing but silence. 

That didn't make the young girl drop her guard though. Her mom and dad were nowhere to be seen; if they were, they would have wondered and wandered to see what she saw. 

Reyah had never felt this tense, every nerve was alert to every noise, but nothing was wrong yet. She had made it to the trees when things started to happen.

There was an explosion behind her in the town. Bright fire rose, quickly engulfing one building before overtaking another. Reyah's heart pounded in her ears, she was frozen in the tree line eyes locked onto the bright blaze that was her father's life work. 

The food was burning, homes were burning, everything Reyah knew was burning. In her eyes, the luscious yellow blazed bright, and all of a sudden there was war. 

She heard guns, and screams, guns and screams echoed with screams of far worse pains than death. The warmth of the colony was erased when the fires started, Reyah couldn't feel the blaze, she felt so cold seeing it engulf her life.

When the screams started to get closer and closer, something snapped in Reyah. She started climbing.

She saw for a moment the child who climbed trees long after it was cool, and climbed faster. The blaze hadn't reached the forest, but that didn't mean those who started the blaze wouldn't soon come there.

Smoke engulfed the night sky, blotting out the moons and stars; all Reyah could see was smoke and fire.

Her hands clutched the gnarled bark, not afraid of the height, but terrified for her home.

She sat in that tree for two days. No one came to the forest, no colonists, none of what attacked, not even any farm animals wandered into the trees in hope for food or drink. 

She was so thirsty, not really that hungry, hearing screams killed her appetite, and smelling smoke made her sick. 

She dared an expedition out of the tree, she needed water or she would die, she knew that from basic training, survival was necessary on a colony.

She didn't go into town she pressed farther into the woods, staying in the shadows of trees and skirting big areas of light, no telling what burned her colony, at least not to her.

She found plants and animals, weary and nervous from the smoke, they could bolt at any moment, Reyah let them, she was one of them herself. She found a river running, and took a chance by drinking straight from it. 

Slowly she drank with the alien animals, in shadows she watched, silent with eyes that saw all.

She went back to her tree, following her waypoints and landmarks, the burning husk of a colony was in sight again and Reyah climbed again, she watched and held her mother's gun to her chest like it was her last chance.

That night the colony was bombarded, from the sky and from the ground explosions hit all around. Reyah actually screamed when one hit close to her hiding spot. No more came to the forest though after that, but they slammed into her home over and over.

She didn't sleep that night. The bombardment stopped when the dawn broke, Reyah clutched her gun and her branch until her knuckles turned white and her palms were pierced by the bark. 

She made her way down the tree again, needing water and wanting to get back from the wreckage of her life.

That plan went up in flames when she reached the ground and heard the chatter and footsteps of someone making their way to the forests boundary. 

She griped the gun, her heart muffling the words and making her legs quake. She hid behind the great tree trunk, gun held to her chest ears straining to find where the intruders to her forest were.

She heard a twig snap and swung around the left of the trunk ready to shoot the invader. She was met face to face with the alliance.

She must have been a sight, gun held without a twitch of uncertainty, eyes blown wide with fear and blood that spotted little parts of her.

She didn't shoot, but she didn't lower the weapon either, she didn't know these men; they could very well have been the ones who attacked.

It took several moments of the soldiers laying down their own weapons before she even got out of her stance, the gun never shook once, her hands were steady as she stared down the soldiers now taking off their helmets.

The one in front kept his surrender as her took his helmet off not but one foot from the teens gun. She lowered it when the man gave her a sad look of quick pride, his thin lips pursed and dark eyes still so sad. 

"Are you from the colony, is there anyone left?"

The question wasn't any easier when spoken softly and with as much empathy as possible, that ment the walked through the rubble of what was once her home, and found no one left.

She told the man what happened and how she survived. The guilt of being the last weighed heavy on her heart, she ran that first night, and in the attack, she hid. 

They called her a survivor, but she felt like a traitor. She followed the men back to their ship, through the rubble of her home she didn't look until she stepped into the shuttle and watched the smoke plume from her home.

It was bitter, there was no sweetness in the last moments she saw her home, she only felt guilty and as if she could have done more, like she could have done something. She watched the smoke billow from the fields, now salt of the earth. Reyah stared as all she knew was in rubble; her school was still a blaze 

There were huge metal parts scattered all around, the soldier she almost shot told her they were starships, or the last bits of both theirs and the Batarians ships that were shot in orbit. Reyah knew that had happened last night, the explosions were ships falling into atmosphere. He told her they were going to the Luna base, then to earth to finish the reports.

Reyah answered any questions asked of her, but she didn’t speak unless spoken to. She was thinking her entire life was just thrown on its head; everything was going to be different. The soldier she faced off against gave her the space she needed, and it helped he and his men were writing up their mission report instead of questioning the teen.

They made it to Luna base the next day, Reyah had fallen asleep at some point, her eyes staring out at the black empty abyss, and by the time they had started to unload the shuttle she was roused, the soldier came and told her where and what they were doing.

She tried to smile for the kind man, but felt it was fake. Reyah had made her decision, before she slept her heart knew what she would do, the thing to help make a difference, to help make this never happen to her or any other girl like her.

“When can I join the alliance sir?”

It was the first question she had asked, and it left the man in silence staring at her, his dark eyes piercing and kind, he said several things to make her doubt her choice but eventually he saw she meant business.

“Not until you are eighteen.” He didn’t saw when, until. A thought popped into Reyah’s head, all the records were burned on Mindoir, no one could search for her data, it was destroyed. She just turned sixteen a few months ago, but she couldn’t wait. She needed to start helping now.

“Sir, I’m eighteen now.”

They filled out the paperwork and she lied about her age, who her parents were, her birthday. She became an adult in that moment, her life a whole new person. She was not a colonist anymore, not the daughter of farmers or engineers, now she was Shepard, the greenhorn with war wounds already.


	2. Chapter 2

N7 Akuze 

Reyah had thought she knew what hell was like. The N program certainly was a circle of it, twenty hours of straight training and only four of rest. The fires of Mindoir were there as well, cries echoing in the fiery blaze.

Akuze was another. When she first saw the terrain, it was the closest to home that she had seen since she left Mindoir. She was hit in waves of emotion as she stared at the yellow sky and tan sand.

The alliance had sent her troop out to investigate why the settlement had gone dark. They had landed and seen nothing but sand and empty homes since then.

She had that feeling though. The same one she got when she left her home that night had been blaring through her since they got into orbit. Something wasn't right here.

Toombs was the only one who even listened about that feeling, she told him once in an earlier mission, and he said that was the best compass a man could get.

Reyah knew they needed to leave, her gut was screaming at her to run back to the shuttle but she persisted in her mission. If she ignored the feeling maybe, she could save a few people.

By the time the sun started to set, they had found nothing. No man, woman, or even one child was hidden in any of the countless basements they checked. Reyah was on edge, her gun in her hand since they landed.

They set up camp in the settlement, Reyah at the top of the tower on watch. She told the commander that she couldn't get any sleep any way while the reason for the settler’s disappearance was still at large.

She sat on top of the world and could see from every angle, she saw mountain ranges nearby; their hard rock surface jutting out of the sand and on the other just an ocean of sand met her gaze.

It was hours before it happened. She felt the dread seep into her bones like the way acid ate at metal, the silence was dreadful. Toombs fell asleep about an hour ago so she didn't even have his company over the radio any more.

She knew something happened to the people here; a whole settlement doesn't just disappear.

It began when all three moons hung in the sky at once. Reyah heard a shriek that if she believed in ghosts she would have said it was a banshee. She rang the alarm for the camp and readied her rifle.

There was nothing on the horizon. The sand was still, lit by the full moons, and showed nothing on its surface. The shrieks continued no source to be seen but now the camp below her was a blaze with activity.

Her commander started to buzz her com but she ignored it, something moved in the sand over on the flat ocean of it, under it, moving the ground like a snake.

She answered the buzz to a yelling commanding officer, who was just woken after he fell asleep. Reyah calmly tried to tell him something was coming. 

He shut off the alarm, the flickering lights stopped and the soldiers were left in darkness to wait for the next shriek.

Toombs radioed her, asking politely what the fuck was going on. She only said that the sand was shifting. 

Her tower shook, sending her to the ground and slamming her into the desk across the way.

She heard screams over the com, Toombs hadn't shut it off in the blast. It wasn't a blast though; the tower wouldn't stop shaking, as if the ground itself was moving.

She stood as fast as she could, her hands gripping the desk she leaned over the edge against the glass. 

A huge worm snake thing was thrashing around at the edge of the settlements wall, through the wall actually. Pieces of the wall were scattered on the ground and so were soldiers.

Reyah grabbed her rifle and started shooting. She shot the giant worm countless times, but no matter how much ammo she unloaded into the thing it didn't show any wear.

The monster shot explosions into the camp, destroying buildings and shaking her tower as if she was in a hurricane. She screamed for her commander over the silent com. Toombs was silent too, no reassurances were coming for her.

The monster slithered under the sand and popped up again on the other side of their camp, raining down fire on the men who were hopefuls for N7. 

She needed more fire power to get this thing gone. 

Her fingers shook when she gently placed her rifle down, and shook even harder when power was still on in the tower.

She was in the anti-aircraft guns control room.

Her fingers flew across the hologram of the controls. She knew she could get in the systems, but who knew of she could get them working. The worm thrashed when it popped up from below again, this time in the camp.

She saw its terrible mouth open and shriek before latching onto a wriggling body and throwing it. She saw the thing decimate her troop as she stayed screaming in the tower trying to calibrate the AA gins.

The first staggering shot she got off slammed into the creatures torso. She froze her fingers hovering above the false keyboard, it actually worked!

Her fingers flew at double time this time, she managed to get off a few more rounds before the creature slunk back into the sand. The monster reappeared on the other side of camp, in the middle of what once was the civilian housing, but now was no more than a ghost town. Reyah had her sights on it though.

She recalibrated the AA-gun as fast as she could to the new target, bombarding the worm until it hid beneath the sand again. She tried to raise Toombs or the commander on her com but all she got was silence, that horrible static of silence.

The night was only just beginning for Reyah though. Her nightmare monster reappeared directly in front of the tower, its body directly in front of the AA-guns. 

Her fingers never input the fire command faster than in that moment, the worm let out a horrid screech, dark blood splattered the viewing windows and splattering Reyah from the shattered windows she shot out earlier.

While the worm was in front of her she kept up the fire, her fingers dancing along the controls as she tried to stay standing. The worm had found that the tower was the one thing really hurting it, and had launched its maw to the viewing deck.

Reyah thought she was watching her death, her fingers still desperately calibrating the guns back around, the tower shook from the movement, but got a shot off into the neck of the beast when it launched towards her and it let out another shriek, this time gurgling and fading. 

The force behind the monsters last attack still was in motion though, and slammed into her tower. It started to collapse, Reyah felt the shuddering and quaking, the whole floor started to tilt and she grasped at the desk, in the next second the entire tower finished collapsing. 

Reyah was breathing. There were sheets of metal on her back, covering her but not crushing her, it took a few minutes to wriggle her way out of the rubble, but eventually she breathed dusty air and saw the stars. 

Tears finally fell, leaving trails in the dirt and grime on her face, she was alone again. She was the last one again. Her body was battered from the fall, her arm was surly broken, as were probably all her ribs. This was a trap. 

Reyah limped away from the battered snake shape, black blood seeped into the sand like oil when she looked all she saw were her failures. She failed her commander, she didn’t warn them soon enough, she didn’t let Toombs know about her gut. 

She limped her way back to the shuttle, it was the rendezvous time, she turned over every soldier she saw, hoping at least one of them still had breath, hoping she would find Toombs or her commander. None.

The shuttle sat silent and cold on the shady sand, she clambered into the driver seat and fired up the com, trying her best to hail the SS Baghdad. She sent out the SOS more times than she counted, she tried to hail Anderson, but he was on the other end of the galaxy, and her com didn’t have that strength. 

The Capitan finally answered her hail, his concerned voice hard and deep, he just lost fifty of the N7 recruits in a night and one commander. His voice was strong enough for her to clutch tight to the comfort. She wasn’t alone, Hackett lost all those men too.

In tortuous minutes, she sat in silence, letting her bruised body breathe and taking a moment to sit. She was exhausted mentally and physically, the toll of knowing she was the only one not once but twice lagged on her, what was so special about her, why was she the only one to stay.

The sound of shuttles alerted her to the alliance soldiers landing, she stumbled out of the door and made her way over, the men were professional, but didn’t stay to help, they were here for the bodies. 

She pointed them on their way and leaned, waiting for the shuttle to take her out of the third layer of hell. When she was finally ushered onto the medical shuttle she was dizzy, and didn’t fight any. They laid her down and she slept the moment her eyes closed.

Hackett was there when she woke, his scarred face grim, but comforting. He was there for the report. She gave him the mission run down, everything even her strange feeling deep in her gut. He gave her comfort, this man had the same loss, he lost a whole troop. 

He said that she took down a thresher maw, alone with the anti-aircraft gun and rage she killed the thing. He said they mostly lived on Tuchanka, that the Krogan fought them for rites of passage, but mostly never killed them.

She didn’t want this, he said she was a hero, she killed what took out her troop and the civilians, but it felt hollow. She did it, but she did it alone.

Anderson came to see her in the hospital, and she broke down. She cried and sobbed into her hands in front of the strongest man she knew. She failed her mission, the settlers were still missing and her friends were dead. 

She was brought to the base on Titan to recoup, with another group of N6’s. her heart broke as they eagerly talked about their missions, a few were sent to Prothean ruins to collect some artifacts, some were sent to war to help bolster efforts in the attacks. 

Reyah didn’t talk about the mission, it was her first, and she lost everything on her first mission, and she wasn’t about to do it again. 

The first mission they were sent on was a typical drop and grab, Reyah took charge, even though she should have stayed in the back she ran forward and hacked away, getting into doors before they even noticed she was behind them.

She screamed at the other N6’s to go where she needed them to go, clapped them on the back when they signaled the all clear. A few said she was taking this all a little to seriously, that it was a run of the mill mission, and she just stared at them and said if they didn’t like her orders, they could go back to the shuttle.

The mission went off without any problems so far, they had secured most of the ruins and found the room where the artifact they were sent to fund was hidden.

She sent a few men ahead to unlock the doors while she hacked into the camera system, sending the data back to Hackett. 

In seconds she heard a clamor of panic and suddenly the lights were flashing throughout the ruins.

The doors of the panic room were rigged, and one of her men set it off, her heart dropped to the core of the planet when she heard the panic from the other end of her com.

She dashed to the back room and saw one of the complainers with his hands on the control panel, to scared to remove them. She scanned the program and worked quickly to get the man free. 

She could have reprimanded the man for being careful, but instead she told him that it was a mistake, but you can learn from those. She kept hacking the door and sprung it from the lockdown, when she got it unlocked she called her troop over, the worried mother hen and had them ask her any questions on bombs.

They recovered the OSD and quickly made their way out of the station. 

The next mission was to save a space station from raiders.

She requested those who made mistakes, but were otherwise good soldiers for her team, she spoke to them with confidence she didn’t feel before they left. She gave her men all the information she had and told them to save everyone they could, even if they take more time.

The undercover agent stepped off her shuttle and into enemy fire, instead of letting her men take the fire she slammed the shuttle door shut and activated her cloak, over the com she told them the mission had changed, they would need to enter via the maintenance shafts on lower decks.

She fought off Blue Suns at every corner, but she didn’t falter, there was no acid in her veins now. 

She made it to the captives’ cabin before her men, she hacked the door before her cloak disappeared and scared the shit out of the poor Salarian workers. She shushed them and entered, the station still wasn’t clear, wasn’t quite safe yet.

She buzzed her team, they had infiltrated the maintenance halls and were making their way over to her. She stood and ran out of the room, she banged on the walls and screamed in the rooms, she would find the rest of these insurgents, she would finish this. 

Eventually they came to find out who was making such a racket, she ended up at the shuttle bay, her heart pounding, but her hands were steady. The shotgun was held loosely in her grasp and ready to fire.

The Blue Suns that opened the door were not ready for a shotgun to the chest, the others weren’t ready for tech to explode and guns to jam. She quickly killed all the men in the elevator, and hunted the rest of them down. 

Once she was sure there were no more raiders she found the Salarian cleaners and her soldiers holed up in the room, she must have been a sight covered in blood and dripping in adrenaline.

The mission report was easy, she gave credit to her men and said she couldn’t have done it without them. 

She was promoted to N7 later that month, her ceremony was a lonely one, only the soldiers who she commanded attended, but she didn’t care. She could save people now, she did save people. 

Hackett found her later that day and invited her to serve on a new ship, one that was manned by Anderson and had entirely new technology. She accepted on the spot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops! Two paragraphs got deleted when I was putting everything in!


	3. N7 Normandy

The Turian had been shadowing her since she boarded the ship. 

She wasn't surprised though, the ship was the most advanced one in the alliance, and it was a joint effort with the Turians to build it, of course they would have someone to check in and make sure no one untoward rode on it.

Thankfully the crew treated her like they treated any other soldier, with respect but like she was a person. She wasn't some hero that just came off of Akuze to them.

Anderson was the Capitan, thankfully she knew someone on the ship and wasn't a total newbie like Jenkins.

This was the man's first posting off planet, and you could tell. He was excited and scared every time they jumped and was first to volunteer when needed.

Engineer Adams and her got on great, he was just like her mother, kind but cleverly questioning.

Karin Chakwas was harder for reyah to get along with. Not for any reason of the doctors, just that reyah wasn't exactly a fan of the smell that came from the infirmary.

But it was the sole Turian that she couldn't figure out.

He followed her like a cat does prey, eyes gleaming from shadows and slinking around corners.

She had been on the Normandy for a week and was starting to wonder why Anderson asked her onto his crew.

Alenko was an excellent soldier, his biotics only adding to her respect of his control, and Adams was the best engineer she had met since her mother.

She was a great soldier, but what good was a N7 on an ambassadors ship.

She followed Anderson like a lost puppy, his second hand after Presley and attempted to find a place that was lacking on the ship.

The Normandy was a sight though, Reyah couldn't stop looking at it when she was brought to the hanger.

It looked more Turian than she had thought, their smooth and effortless lines were obvious. But so were the humans thrusters.

It was a piece of work to get arround. The stairs were behind a maintenance door that only the Capitan and the cleaner had access to,  and the elevator took it's sweet time.

The one and only conversation she had with Nihlus was in said elevator. It had stopped when both were making their way down.

He had jumped in when the doors started to close, his eyes wide when he saw who he was in there with. 

And with Reyah's luck she should have expected to get stuck.

She grasped the sides of the car when it jolted. There were a few beeps before the two were plunged into silence.

Reyah wasn't a fan of the quiet. It always ment bad things were on the horizon, silence heralded all tragedy.

So she stood with the Turian, in a very awkward elevator. 

"Where are you from?"

The question actually burst out of her without any preemption, his mandibles flicked and he made a strange purr, closing his eyes for a moment before locking her gaze.

"Outside Turian space." 

"Colonist?"

"Merc."

It went into silence again. But now she knew much more about him than before.

"What's it like, the Citadel, Palaven, Thessia? Anywhere with yellow skies?" 

Her question was met with nothing for a while. She just wanted to break the insufferable silence, and the Turians harmonics were strangely more helpful than her own voice.

"Its beautiful, but harsh." 

She slid down to the floor of the elevator and kept looking at the man. His mandibles flicked as he stood still but soon he slid down to the floor too. 

"I've never seen a yellow sky, where is that?"

"Mindoir and Akuze."

They sat in silence again. 

"I had green skies."

The elevator moved and the doors slid open, Nihlus stood, nodded and dashed over to the requisitions officer before she could ask where.

She didn't see him for days after that.

Not in the mess hall or shuttle bay, not the clinic or bridge.

Maybe home was a touchy subject for him.

She talked with joker about the ship and finally got a good talk in with Jenkins before she even saw the Turian again. 

Though now he didn't watch her like she would blow up if she stepped wrong, that was a plus.

Now though she knew where they were going. 

Eden Prime, and they needed a soldier to help.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Please let me know if I missed any errors and don't forget to leave a review if you liked it! Thank you!


End file.
